Great World City | Shokutsu Ten Japanese Food Street

Shokutsu Ten Japanese Food Street is the next to enter the bustling Japanese Food Town concepts in Singapore. However, RE&S who brought in Shokutsu Ten Japanese Food Street concept to Great World City is no stranger to the Japanese food town scene. It was one of the pioneers who first introduced Shokutsu Ten Japanese Food Street to Jurongpoint during a time when Nihonmura was the Japanese food town to makan in. With steep competition nowadays, what does Shokutsu Ten Japanese Food Street has to offer?

The host from RE&S once lived and worked in Tokyo for a long time before her current work. She still visits Japan once in a while to keep herself up to date to the food scene in Japan and part of the influence could be seen in the eateries where there is some interesting take on the dishes.

At Shokutsu Ten Japanese Food Street at Great World City, there are a few restaurants each specializing in a particular kind of Japanese food. Firstly, there is Shimbashi Soba

For the purists, you could go for the Seiro (11.80++ SGD) which is the most basic, chilled plain noodle served with dipping sauce. I think what surprised me was that the restaurant offers hand made or machine made soba. Also something to note is that the restaurant prepares its soba in-house.

Being a soba restaurant it is not surprising to see a range of flavours being offered. Some are seasonal and some are meant to be a signature such as this Chilled Ume Soba which you could enjoy with sour plum juice. Quite a different taste.

Also worth trying out is the Lemon Soba, the citrus flavours with seaweed garnish went very well with the chilled soba. Perfect for a hot day.

Even the tea was prepared with soba water which is supposed to have nutritious benefits. That aside, it was a rather pleasant tea, mellow and slightly savoury. One of the selling points of Shimbashi Soba is the health benefit of soba which is supposed to be low in calories thus for a healthy meal, consider coming here. Sometimes for a light meal I do enjoy just have plain soba with dipping sauce.

Next door, is Men-ichi Sapporo Ramen which obviously specialized in Sapporo-style ramen. The choice here is quite clear (besides the tantalizing karaage, charsiew or Hokkaido potato wedges for curiosity) : You have either the Tokusen Sapporo Miso Ramen or the Sapporo Spicy Shio Ramen.

First of, the ramen noodles are directly imported in this form from Japan, and it comes in either thick or thin strains.

The Tokusen Sapporo Miso Ramen (19.50++ SGD) is closer to what one normally associate with Japanese ramen but with a twist, the addition of corn kernels gives it a sweet finish which makes it rather interesting.

Then there is the Sapporo Spicy Shio Ramen (17.90 ++ SGD) which resembles the Korean Rang Myun, it was spicy shiok and I could imagine having a bowl of this on a cold rainy day. It was addictively delicious and the addition of pickled chili peppers makes it really tasty.

Notice how lean the char siew is, Men-ichi Sapporo Ramen takes pride in their char siew which is not the fatty kind. Nonetheless, even though it was lean and lacks the fattiness normally found in char siew for ramen, this was surprisingly tender.

They also serve potato wedges made from potatoes from Hokkaido to soak up the broth. Although the noodles were rather decent, I think it lacks the character or strong memorable touch like Bari Uma's. That said, perhaps that also made these a good comfort food to have. Little tweaks to the classics but not too far from comfortable flavours.

Lastly, there is an izakaya, tempura restaurant....mixed-concept seafood restaurant named Ami Ami, which refers to the nets used for fishing.

There was a sparkling wine promotion while we were there and we gave it a go. It goes pretty well with the tempura and seafood dishes with delicate fruity flavors that accentuates the sweetness of the seafood we had.

This is the Ami Ami Tempura Set (45.80++ SGD), it is quite a sumptuous spread.

And this is meant for 1 person. The difference from the picture is that you would be served sashimi of the day instead of what is pictured above,

which is the "Fuji" Sashimi 5 Kinds which include Tuna (maguro), Salmon (sake), Spanish Mackerel (sawara), Amberjack (kanpachi) and Sea Bream (tai). These might change according to season.

Sea Bream is in season while we were there, we had Sea Bream sashimi and a lightly grilled sea bream. Some might not like the tiny bones in this fish. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the lightly grilled fish for its mild smokiness and tasty meat.

For appetizer, there was also Grilled Hokkaido Scallops, this one is topped with ikura and crab meat.

What I enjoyed most about the Ami Ami however, is their tempura offerings. To get the full experience, go for the counter seats where you could observe the chefs preparing the tempura and serving it to you in person one by one like in the tempura restaurants in Japan.

The classic Prawn Tempura.

And for something different, there is the White Fish tempura, this was really good. They have a variety of condiments to go with the tempura and it is amazing to see how the different kinds of tempura pair with the condiments with different results. The simplicity of the dishes which focus on the ingredients also make it even more enjoyable.

What blew me away at Ami Ami is their Original Egg Tempura Rice (6.50 ++SGD). I remembered having egg tempura in a tempura restaurant at Nihonbashi. I spotted something similar at Paragon but this is different, it is an onsen egg wrapped in a deep-fried beancurd skin and best enjoyed with a few drops of tempura sauce.

This is simplicity at its best. Very well-prepared and cooked rice served with a runny, tasty egg. Yummms.

Unfortunately, you couldn't have the dishes from different restaurants in one place, thus you might have to revisit the place from time to time to try out the food on offer, or you go go on a food trail.
Located at Great World City, the venue might seem odd for some due to its accessibility but if that doesn't deter you, you would be rewarded with decent food and a more laid back, quiet setting compared to places like Orchard and Bugis. Great World City offers a free shuttle bus service too if you are planning to head down to Great World City.